Rise
by 9r7g5h
Summary: Time and again, until they went together, they would continue to rise.


AN: Sorry it's been so long since I posted anything. Been having trouble with writing. This is based off the tumblr post by xenasmanyskills on tumblr that pointed out that, after Xena killed 90% of the Olympians, the other gods probably wouldn't want her. So yeah. I hope you guys enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Xena.

* * *

Sitting there in at the tavern bar, ordering two bowls of soup, Gabrielle knew everyone thought she was crazy. She knew it as well as she knew the sky was blue, puppies were soft, and bread paired well with stew. She knew it as easily as she knew how to breathe- their constant stares and incessant muttering for the last three days had made their opinions about her very clear. She hadn't even needed to try and eavesdrop to realize that everyone thought she was insane, they were that loud, and so sure in their belief that they didn't even think she would hear. They thought her detached from the word, her mind broken from her loss.

She didn't really blame them, because for anyone else, hoarding their dead lover's body in their room at the inn would have been a sure sign that everyone else was right.

But for them? Gabrielle had to laugh a little bit, because for them, squirreling away each other's body until they could return had become a typical weekend activity.

It had started shortly after she'd left Japa, Xena's presence by her shoulder as she slowly made her way to the cave where Lyceus and Cyrene rested. Slowly, the further and further away they had gotten from the island, the more Xena had begun to fade. Even though a hundred other afterlifes had a claim on her soul, she was apparently tied to the land where she had died, and so was being called back with every step she took, a call that was harder and harder to resist. Part of Gabrielle had been determined to go back, to spend the rest of her life on Japa, just so their souls would be together when she finally passed herself, but Xena had convinced her not to. Her soul might be bound, but she still wanted her body to lay at rest at home. And even if Xena had to fight through a thousand underworlds, they would be together again, one day.

So, Gabrielle had continued forward, even as Xena's voice became harder and harder to tell apart from the wind, continued on to Greece. On to Amphipolis, where she places Xena in the crypt with her family, where she would be able to finally rest.

Where, the next day, Xena found Gabrielle sitting in what remained of Cyrene's tavern, covered in dust and cobwebs, wearing nothing and bearing, written on her arm in ink, the regards of Izanami, the goddess of death.

"She just told me 'no," Xena said with a shrug, her mouth half full of some bird Gabrielle had killed. While not weak, per say, being alive again after so many weeks of death was a hard adjustment, especially since her body had just been a pile of ashes a few hours ago. "Said she'd heard of me, and that I couldn't come in. I've apparently got a reputation as a trouble maker."

Her smirk was almost irritatingly smug, and Gabrielle would have rolled her eyes if it hadn't been the most beautiful thing she had seen in over a month.

"So what happened then?"

"Got her husband to fix up my body, and they sent me home." Again, it was with a bewildered shrug that Xena finished speaking, instead turning her attention fully to her meal. Neither of them truly wanted to question it too much, this miracle they'd been given. So, instead, they accepted it with all of the mysteries that surrounded it, because why not? It gave them the second chance they both wanted, and that wasn't a change they were going to waste.

They found her clothes in the tomb a day later, covered in dirt and rust and mud, and accepted them with grace.

* * *

They started to question the "miracle" a little bit more when, while in Mesopotamia, Gabrielle came back as well.

Her death had been quick, too quick for either of them to understand, to stop it. One moment they had been sitting there, enjoying the warmth of the sun as they worked their way through a platter of food, curtesy of the inn they were staying at. Gabrielle had bitten into a strange, small purple fruit, her tongue darting out to catch the trickle of juice as it ran down her chin, fighting against her laughter as Xena continued to speak. And the next she was coughing, her facing turning red and her throat swelling, every movement and gesture panicked as she struggled to breathe around an invisible object, everything Xena tried to do to save her accomplishing nothing. For just a few long, agonizing minutes they both fought, Gabrielle to stay alive and Xena to keep her so, only, finally, for them to fail.

Gabrielle had gone limp in Xena's arms, and Xena had broken.

It took twenty men to subdue her enough for a priest to come and collect the body, and they only stood a chance because Xena had been unarmed, her weapons left at the entrance to the inn at the owner's request. Twenty men to hold her back, their hands grasping whatever they could hold so she wouldn't attack another priest, the first still holding his bleeding arm where she had torn out a chunk of muscle with her nails alone, punishment for daring to think he could touch Gabrielle. Twenty men to subdue her physically, though that hadn't stopped her tongue, demanding that they bring her back, that anyone who touched her was dead, that so help her gods, she would find her.

She ended up wrapped in chains in a cell for a day and a half, the guards too scared to come near the wild, thrashing, screaming creature she had become. The head of the guard had been there, when she'd first been brought in, and had told her that, once she calmed down and the body was ready for the funeral, she would be freed. The priest wasn't pressing charges, the inn keep wasn't requesting payment for the furniture she's broken in the struggle to get her out, none of the men she'd almost killed in her attempts to escape and refind Gabrielle were blaming her for their wounds- as if everyone knew how deeply this wound had struck, they weren't blaming her for her grief. But she wasn't allowed out until she calmed.

That'd been a day and a half ago, and still Xena struggled against her chains, refusing to eat, refusing to sleep, refusing to rest because Gabrielle was _gone_ , and she had to get her back. She'd gone into the underworld and make her way back before, she could and would do it again and again, a thousand times over, if it meant having Gabrielle back by her side.

And she pitied whatever mortal or god who tried to stand in her way, because she had killed so many before, she had no qualms against killing them again.

But then Gabrielle was already back. Led by a pale, shaken head of the guard, followed by a dozen priests who were constantly questioning her, their own eyes wide and shiny with reverence, Gabrielle had appeared before the bars that separated Xena's cell from the rest of the world, her voice calm and soothing as she talked Xena down from her rage. As she brought her back to this side of sanity, the very clear sign that she was alive doing wonders for Xena as, slowly, she came back to the world. Enough so that the head of the guard ordered her released, though the terrified look in his eyes as she barreled past him and swept Gabrielle into her arms, into a heated, desperate kiss, almost made her wonder if he regretted that decision. For the moment they broke apart, Xena had placed herself between Gabrielle and the others, her glare itself a weapon to keep them far away from them both. To keep back the questions they all had so she could hear Gabrielle speak.

"What happened?"

"The goddess, Ereshkigal…" Gabrielle's voice trailed off for a moment, glancing over at the priests as the unfamiliar name rolled from her tongue. She smiled in thanks when one of them nodded in confirmation, silently telling her she had been correct in her pronunciation. "She stopped me before I went through the first of the gates. Told me that it would be unfair for death to part two such lovers, so she sent me back. And told me to avoid plums, from now on." Gabrielle winced at the reminder of what had caused her demise, one hand reaching up to scratch at her throat- which, Xena could now see, now that she was calm, had a strange rash up one side and still looked slightly swollen.

Part of Xena wanted to destroy every instance of that cursed fruit, wipe it from the face of the earth, but Gabrielle's almost humorless smile, as if she knew what Xena was thinking, stopped her. Because she was back, and that was all that mattered.

The priests tried to cut in then (what kind of person, what kind of love, was enough to allow someone to return from the Land of No Return?), tried to bombard Gabrielle with a hundred dozen questions, but once again Xena's glare quieted them. It was only when one of them, the same one who had nodded at Gabrielle earlier, stepped forward and asked if they would care for a room at the temple that Xena's temper against them softened.

They probably wouldn't be allowed back in at the inn, so they accepted, and it was he who joined them for dinner later that night, a dinner that was markedly absent of anything even resembling a plum. For a while they talked, Gabrielle answering his questions as best as she could, before claiming exhaustion after a few long days and sending him away.

They didn't talk that night (both too preoccupied with reconfirming over and over again that Gabrielle was, in fact, alive and well), but when they set off the next morning, Gabrielle couldn't keep her observation to herself.

"That's twice now one of us were sent back. At least," she amended at Xena's raised eyebrow, "twice recently." They had lost count of the number of times they had died and come back to life over the years, the number an impossible one for anyone else in the world. "What do you think is going on?"

Xena could just shrug, because whatever afterlife conspiracy was keeping them alive, she honestly couldn't mind it. It was worrisome, when thought about, yes, but for the moment?

For the moment, she stopped and pulled Gabrielle into another kiss, driving away the confusion and fear bubbling under their skin for the single reminder that they were, in fact, alive.

* * *

It was while in Egypt that they finally, _finally_ , got an answer.

Argo had spooked. Whether it was a snake or a scorpion or some other little terrifying creature that had darted under her hooves, Argo had spooked and reared, throwing Xena from her saddle. It wouldn't have been bad, she would have just used the momentum to flip onto her feet, but her boot had gotten stuck in the stirrup.

She didn't make a sound, just hit the ground with a sickening _crunch_ and laid there, unmoving, for all the world to see she was gone.

It had taken a few long moment for Gabrielle to calm herself, to remind herself of what had happened the last few times the world had tried to take one of them, before she could finally think. Luckily they were far from the nearest city, following the path of the Nile as they worked their way towards the capital, so she didn't to worry about anyone stumbling upon them. At least not for a while, and she would see them coming before they got there. So, Gabrielle set up camp, tucked Xena into her bedroll, and waited.

And waited.

And anxiously waited as the day passed into night, the sand growing cold beneath them, the reed fire she'd built the only course of warmth nearby. Part of Gabrielle had started to wonder, wonder if the other times had been a fluke, had been luck or the grace of those particular gods. Wonder if this was it, if she was going to once again have to make her way back to Amphipolis and lay her love to rest, again, in that hated crypt. She started to wonder if this twisted believe she had been harboring, that they couldn't actually die, was wrong and vain and built off an illusion of greatness, that they were beyond mortal, that-

Xena sat up with a gasp, her hand flying to the part of her neck where she could hear the bone popping back into place, where she could feel them merging back together into a single piece that would keep her alive. She didn't have long to contemplate it, though, as she found herself with a lap full of Gabrielle, the tears she had been holding back finally falling now that she was sure Xena was alive.

Alive and with some answers.

"They won't take us," Xena explained later, when they'd both calmed down, Xena's hand running up and down Gabrielle's side as they laid in bed. "Apparently, according to Osiris, we made too much of a name for ourselves during the Twilight of the Gods. We're infamous among the ones that remain."

"Infamous?"

"Oh, you know," Xena said, turning her head away from the stars so she could look at Gabrielle, her head resting contentedly on her shoulder. "I'm Xena God-Killer, the destroyer of immortals, true heir to the throne of Hell, killer of all that lives." Her voice was light with the words, but her eyes had turned dark. She had spent so long trying to shed her reputation, only for a worse one to follow.

"And me?" Gabrielle reached up and gently traced the curve of Xena's jaw with her finger, smiling softly when Xena turned her head to place a kiss against the digit. "What have I done to make the gods fear me?"

Xena flashed a wicked smile, amusement making her look sharp. "You're the only one who can control me," Xena said, "and the gods know I would do anything to get you back. So, unless we die together so you're there to keep me from killing them all, no one's keeping us."

Gabrielle was almost hesitant to believe it. While, yes, Xena was the reason the Olympians' numbers had fallen to so few, the idea that _all_ of the gods now feared her? That they all were so terrified of her wrath that they would allow the two of them to cheat death until, by chance, they went together? It was almost too good to believe.

But this was Xena, and stranger things had happened.

"It's a nice thought," Gabrielle admitted after a few moments, shifting so she was more comfortable curled into Xena's side, tilting her face up for a kiss- a silent request Xena was happy to comply with. "But let's not keep testing it."

A request both had agreed to, for dying and returning back to life wasn't the most pleasant of experiences. But a request that was quickly put to the test and proven impossible, for when they were practically immortal, how could they not jump in when other needed their help, their own health be damned?

Especially since anything that happened was, for all intents and purposes, temporary.

For Aita had sent Gabrielle back without a second glance. Arawn had cursed her out for dying on his land and risking bringing Xena' wrath before he had returned her (with a very polite request that Gabrielle pass on his request that Xena stay alive and away from him). And while Xena wouldn't say exactly what had happened between her and Tuoni, she had woken up laughing, her temperament high for days after. And though hey would both berate the other for risking their lives when they got back, both knew that wouldn't stop them the next time their death was required. For the little girl Gabrielle had saved still lived because she had taken the sword meant for her, the village healer had been able to make the medicine because she had dived to the bottom of the lake for the plant (and drowned, yes, but only temporarily), and the warlord was dead because Xena had killed them all, despite the wounds she had received.

With such a gift, how could they just sit there and watch?

Especially since, whatever happened, it never lasted.

Gabrielle barely flinched at the strangled yelp someone let out behind her, only smiled softly to herself as she listened to the room scramble away from the stairs. Familiar footsteps came right towards her, and as Xena took the seat next to her, Gabrielle turned and nodded at the terrified server boy, his eyes wide and fearful as he stared at the recently reawakened dead.

"We're ready for that other bowl of soup now."

"How'd you know today would be the day," Xena asked, reaching out and taking Gabrielle's cup, draining the last of the water from it. She winced as she moved- although the original claw marks that had torn open her side and stomach were gone, fully healed by the power of the god who had sent her back, she was still a bit tender, and would be for the next couple of days. Served her right, for going after an overgrown lion-like monster by herself.

"You're never gone for that long," Gabrielle pointed out, shrugging. The server boy had returned, a steaming bowl in his hands, though he refused to pass Gabrielle and give the bowl to Xena. Smiling kindly, she took it instead, handing him one of the coppers the people around this area used for money. Handing it over, Gabrielle shook her head as Xena began to eat, scarfing the food as quickly as the heat would allow.

She reached out and pulled Xena's hand away from the bowl, holding it between her own as she just sat there and watched Xena eat. This had been the seventh time one of them had passed, and just like all the others before, she had come back.

But that hadn't keep the tiny little sliver of fear from entering Gabrielle's heart that she wouldn't.

Later she would have to berate Xena- they had both promised to be careful after the last time, to try and find other ways of saving everyone that wouldn't cost them their lives. But, for now, she was just glad the god's fears had held.

"What did Veles have to say?" Gabrielle had asked around that first day, after a group of villagers had brought her back, and the people had been happy to tell her. They had expected it, figuring that, after the mourning night, Gabrielle would want to know the name of the god her love was to spend eternity with. Things had only gotten strange when, the next morning, after a group of men and the village leader arrived to take Xena's body to the burial grounds, Gabrielle had driven them off with her sais, making it clear no one was to touch her.

"You know, same old," Xena shrugged, reaching for the cup only to remember it was empty. She swallowed thickly instead, half coughing as the hardy but overly seasoned and thick stew finally left her throat. "'There are some ties even death cannot dare to think of breaking, and so take this blessing of mine that you shall have a good long life.'" Her voice deepened as she paraphrased the god, the solemn words ruined by her eye roll at the end.

"A blessing we're happy to have," Gabrielle reprimanded, elbowing Xena in the side as she gave her the 'behave yourself' look. She immediately felt guilty as Xena winced, pulling away slightly as her arm went protectively around her previously wounded side, though it quickly faded. Just because the gods didn't want them dead didn't mean they couldn't still cause them a world of trouble, and Gabrielle was tired of having to deal with them.

But she couldn't stay mad for long, and after a moment Gabrielle reached up and gently turned Xena's face towards her own, happily accepting and returning the kiss that followed.

She would yell at Xena more later, when the overwhelming relief that she had come back wasn't making the world seem softer than it was, when she could think without the little voice in the back of her mind repeating over and over again _it's ok, she's safe_ to distract her. When they could once again rehash the argument that they both knew would make them play it safe for a week before they once again took advantage of the god's fear to help someone else.

But, for now, ignoring the onlookers and the whispers that reminded her people normally didn't rise from the dead on a monthly basis, Gabrielle just pulled Xena deeper into the kiss, glad for their twisted version of immortality that let her do so.

They'd die one day, when the Fates decided they would go together, but until then? Until then they lived and would rise again as many times as the Fates allowed.


End file.
